5 Programming Languages That Are Probably Doomed

Not all programming languages endure forever. In fact, even the most popular ones inevitably crumble away, as new generations of developers embrace other languages and frameworks they find easier to work with.

In order to determine which programming languages are likely doomed in the medium- to long-term, we looked at the popularity rankings by TIOBE and RedMonk, as well as Dice’s own database of job postings. If your career is based on any of the following languages, we suggest diversifying your skill-set at some point.

Ruby

Once upon a time, Ruby enjoyed a fair bit of popularity. It was a top-ten language on TIOBE’s monthly list, and developers praised how easy it was to learn. But over the past 18 months, it has dipped in TIOBE’s rankings, from ninth to 12th place (after falling at one point to 16th).

Even more disturbing: An analysis of Dice job-posting data over the past year shows a startling dip in the number of companies looking for technology professionals who are skilled in Ruby. In 2018, the number of Ruby jobs declined 56 percent. That’s a huge warning sign that companies are turning away from Ruby—and if that’s the case, the language’s user-base could rapidly erode to almost nothing.

Haskell

Supposedly, Haskell is headed for a major standard update in 2020 (check out GHC, as well as GitHub’s Haskell-related repos). A number of prominent firms and projects (Facebook, GitHub, etc.) have all used Haskell to implement vital programs at one point or another. However, Haskell continues to flatline on RedMonk’s long-term language rankings, suggesting that there’s virtually no developer buzz around it. Dying, or totally dead?

Objective-C

Apple’s Objective-C is 35 years old, and it’s clear that the company wants it dead. Five years ago, Apple executives took to the stage to unveil Swift, its new-and-improved programming language for its software ecosystem. No doubt they expected developers to quickly embrace Swift at Objective-C’s expense.

And to be fair, more developers have begun using Swift (especially as it’s become more feature-rich), but Objective-C hasn’t crashed as much in the popular-language rankings as some folks might have expected. Blame that on 35 years of legacy code, and many developers simply preferring to work with a language they’ve always used.

At some point, though, Objective-C will likely fade away entirely. Apple’s too keen on its eventual demise, and Swift is becoming an incredibly effective language for building iOS, macOS, and, soon, cross-platform apps.

R

Back in the day, R was an increasingly popular language for data analytics. However, it seems that Python is rapidly swallowing up R’s market-share. Although R is still used by academics and data scientists, companies interested in data analytics are turning to Pythonfor its scalability and ease of use. As a result, R has dipped on TIOBE’s index of programming language popularity, and other studieshave shown a slow decline in R usage in favor of Python.

If R is going to survive in any form, it’s because data analysts might end up using it in conjunction with Python. “Combining R and Python is both reasonable and feasible,” Enriko Aryanto, the CTO and a co-founder of the Redwood City, Calif.-based QuanticMind, a data platform for intelligent marketing, told Dice earlier this year. “We run them both in our data science platform internally. But if I were starting my career all over again today, I might consider focusing on Python rather than R. It’s a more-general language with broader applications.”

But even that scenario might end with R used by a handful of academics and nobody else. That’s not viable.

Perl

Even if RedMonk has Perl’s popularity declining, it’s still going to take a long time for the language to flatten out completely, given the sheer number of legacy websites that still feature its code. Nonetheless, widespread developer embrace of other languages for things like building websites, means that Perl is going to just fall into increasing disuse.

(Note: In an earlier version of this article, we said that Perl had little to no active development. As some helpful commenters pointed out, that’s actually not the case: it’s updated annually. However, given its decline on RedMonk and TIOBE, we still argue that this is a declining language.)

Source: Dice.com

Content marketing industry to be worth $412bn by 2021 following four-year growth spurt

The global content marketing industry is projected to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 16% according to the latest market research forecast to be compiled by Technavio.

Spanning the period from 2017-21 the report singled out three key growth-drivers for the industry; building brand awareness, lower costs than traditional advertising and an increased conversion rate.

This is set to power a total industry valuation of just $195.58bn in 2016 to $412.88bn by 2021, representing incremental growth of $217.3bn.

Ujjwal Doshi, lead analyst at Technavio for media and entertainment services commented: “The effectiveness of traditional marketing is decreasing by the day. Companies must adopt the latest marketing trends to enhance their business and increase their consumer base. Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that is focused on creating and sharing valuable, consistent, and relevant content to attract and retain the audience.

“Content marketing is the most economical and effective means of building brand awareness among consumers. If an audience can rely on a company for information, then they will most likely buy products from the same company.”

Sponsored content has taken off as advertisers seek new ways to skirt ad blocking software while delivering tangential benefits in terms of improving search engine optimization, social media followings and PR.

Source: TheDrum.com

What does screen resolution mean?

  • 720p = 1280 x 720 – is usually known as HD or “HD Ready” resolution
  • 1080p = 1920 x 1080 – is usually known as FHD or “Full HD” resolution
  • 2K = 2048 x 1080 – this refers to displays that have a horizontal resolution of approximately 2000 pixels. Although it is close to 1080p, it is considered as a different resolution standard.
  • 1440p = 2560 x 1440 – commonly known as QHD or Quad HD resolution, and typically seen on gaming monitors and on high-end smartphones. 1440p is four times the resolution of 720p HD or “HD ready.”
  • 4K or 2160p = 3840 x 2160 – commonly known as 4K, UHD or Ultra HD resolution. It is a huge display resolution, and it is found on premium TVs and computer monitors. 2160p is called 4K because the width is close to 4000 pixels. In other words, it offers four times the pixels of 1080p FHD or “Full HD.”
  • 8K or 4320p = 7680 x 4320 – is known as 8K and it offers 16 times more pixels than the regular 1080p FHD or “Full HD” resolution.

Source: DigitalCitizen.life

Start Small

Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you’ll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision.

So start small, and think about the details. Don’t think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn’t solve some fairly immediate need, it’s almost certainly over-designed. And don’t expect people to jump in and help you. That’s not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say “hey, that _almost_ works for me”, and they’ll get involved in the project.

And if there is anything I’ve learnt from Linux, it’s that projects have a life of their own, and you should _not_ try to enforce your “vision” too strongly on them. Most often you’re wrong anyway, and if you’re not flexible and willing to take input from others (and willing to change direction when it turned out your vision was flawed), you’ll never get anything good done.

In other words, be willing to admit your mistakes, and don’t expect to get anywhere big in any kind of short timeframe. I’ve been doing Linux for thirteen years, and I expect to do it for quite some time still. If I had _expected_ to do something that big, I’d never have started. It started out small and insignificant, and that’s how I thought about it.

Source: LinuxTimes.net

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